Six places for 2011 Asia Cup already gone!

The prospect of more games in Asia is clearly cheering Mark Viduka up!

If the following is true:

Three 2011 Asia Cup places go to top three places in this years Asia Cup.
Two places to winners of AFC Challenge Cup. See below. This is for developing nations, so Australia can't get in there.
And presumably the hosts get a slot

Which leaves ten places, and therefore increasing the qualification difficulties.

Personally I'd rather see us play through qualification than automatically qualify. Meaningful games are what we joined the AFC for, and automatic qualification would have meant we would be reduced to lots of tedious friendlies again.

Here's the detail from the AFC:

AFC Asian Cup 2007: Semi-Finalists competing for automatic qualification to 2011 AFC Asian Cup

Jakarta 23.07.07: The four remaining teams in AFC Asian Cup 2007, Iraq, Japan, Korea Republic and Saudi Arabia, are also competing for automatic qualification for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, as well as the prize of being champions of Asia.



As announced following the AFC Executive Committee held on 17th July 2006, the teams which finish first (1st), second (2nd) and third (3rd) in 2007, and the host nation for the 2011 competition, shall receive automatic byes to Finals.



The winners of the AFC Challenge Cup competitions in 2008 and 2010 shall also qualify automatically to the 2011 Finals. Should the champions of 2008 and 2010 be the same team, then the runners-up from AFC Challenge Cup 2010 shall qualify along with the champion.

Therefore, the 3rd/4th place match at this edition of the AFC Asian Cup takes on more significance, as the winner will join the Champion and Runner-up of the AFC Asian Cup 2007 in 2011.